GRN Standard: Historic Boros

Armageddon is one of my all-time favorite cards. It is brutal and powerful but requires some setup around it to be effective. It’s most infamous use was with white weenie decks back in the day, where they would go 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop, geddon, leaving the opponent with no lands and no answers. My favorite use of Armageddon comes from breaking the symmetry behind it. If you play a lot of artifacts that generate mana and then you cast Armageddon, your opponent is left with nothing while you still have 6 mana to work with. For these reasons, Wildfire and Upheaval are some of my favorite cards to draft in cube because they lead to crazy games and fun matches.

In the past year, Dominaria printed a card that made me very excited: Fall of the Thran. Mass land destruction is something that they don’t put in Standard anymore. Fall of the Thran does have issues, however. It’s biggest weakness is that it gives the lands back to the opponent. That defeats the whole purpose of mass land destruction and makes it hard to really abuse Fall of the Thran in a way that pressures the opponent. It also costs 6 mana to play, which can make it far too slow especially against aggressive decks. But, that is not enough to stop me from wanting to play with it!

For the longest time, I was struggling on how I could abuse Fall of the Thran and make a deck around it. My friend then sent me a decklist that really inspired me. He put Fall of the Thran as the top end of a Boros equipment deck. With Dowsing Dagger and Prying Blade, you can apply pressure while still generating mana for when you eventually blow up all of the lands. Doing this allows you to abuse both halves of Armageddon at the same time. You are a white weenie deck that also happens to generate far more mana than the opponent ever will.

The equipment isn’t the only way to generate mana in this deck either. With the help of my favorite card in Dominaria, Powerstone Shard, you can bury your opponent in mana with only 2 of these. Board the Weatherlight is a phenomenal cantrip in this deck as well. Finding everything in the deck short of Fight with Fire and Serra Disciple. Something that might surprise a lot of people is the full playset of Serra Disciple, the common that was given a 1.5 by LSV for Dominaria limited. Serra Disciple plays a key role in this deck, which I was not expecting when I first started playing my friends list. A flyer for 2 mana is key for all of the equipment we have that is dependent on hitting the opponent to generate value. Triggering off of all of our historic spells is key for when we have 10 mana, and having First Strike is great for when we cast a Kwende, Pride of Femeref.

What are we doing with all of this mana though? My favorite way to abuse it is with Helm of the Host. A 9 mana effect had better win us the game, and Helm of the Host does not disappoint. Reducing its price with the help of Danitha Capashen, and Jhoira’s Familiar allows us to get this down for much cheaper, and then we can equip using our Powerstone Shards. If you have this equipped to anything and then cast Fall of the Thran, your opponent does not stand a chance. Another way to spend all our mana is through a kicked Fight with Fire. If you ever get your opponent below 10 life, they are done for.

One of the greatest parts about this deck is with the sideboard. If your big mana strategy is ineffective against your opponent, cut all of your expensive spells and bring in all of your aggressive cards. Valduk, Keeper of the Flame can create dozens of 3/1’s that can swarm your opponent, and Champion of the Flame can become massive with just one or two equipment. Your opponent will bring in bigger spells to combat your normal strategy, and you can just run underneath them before they have time to set up. Thank you all for reading, I hope you have a great week and an amazing Tuesday!